Two wizard questions: Can I learn anymore languages besides the ones in PHB1, and how do other wizards afford all those stupid rituals?? I'm broke trying to afford their market price and component cost! (You have to buy the component more than once do preform the ritual more than once, right?)
There are no languages other than the ten listed in the Player's Handbook. If I'm not mistaken, it's likely to be an attempt to keep it a consolidated list, since in 3.5 there were too many languages to count (which made it difficult for anyone to be able to communicate with anybody). As for rituals, yes you must buy them for their market price, copy them, and then each casting requires material components in value equal to the Component Cost listed. Each time.
It's expensive. I might suggest getting the party to help with your ritual expenses. The whole party benefits from them often enough, right? They ought to split their gold evenly with you on purchases of rituals and their components. Or at least, the rituals and components that they all agree are necessary for the party. You might not be able to convince them that Fastidiousness is a worthy investment.
I assume you mean 4e, talk to your DM tell him your woes. Say you want to learn new languages and see what are available. In previous editions there were dozens of languages to learn but then again things were a little bit broader, again consult your DM.
As far as gp and components. I'm not as familiar with 4e treasure parcels but it again seems to me that this problem is solved fairly easily by talking to your DM. If you ever fight mages then take their components when you win, a little extra gp always helps too. Worst comes to worst then talk to the shop owner who sells your your rituals and components and work something out. Credit for doing jobs, the owner makes money by leasing you out and you get to gather jobs, xp and materials while you are at it. Also, again not so sure about 4e, but you used to be able to collect your reagents from the wild instead of just buying them.
Ritual costs appear high, but in practical play I have found the costs of most rituals to be negligible. The cheap low-cost rituals might never outlive their usefulness, and the fancy ones that affect the whole party are easily split five ways.
I also have another question. Some ritual components have a special price, like, for instance, enchant magic item or brew potion. How do you buy the components ahead of time if you don't know what the price will be until you have a need for the ritual?
I've also wondered: can I buy more than the rituals that I automatically gain at higher levels? Like, can I buy cure disease if I already have my two 11th level or lower rituals?
The Spellbook class feature grants you free rituals, it doesn't prevent you from adding more to your book.
You aren't really expected to keep up with knowing all rituals of your level. Maybe one or two, once they prove important to the party, and the party can then pool resources. Generally the low level ones are all you can "collect" and cast with any frequency. As you noted, they are crazy expensive.
As you climb levels, save up the residuum from disenchanted items. Buy reagents on a one-for-one basis whenever possible. Then you just sort of carry a large store with you. You aren't expected to Enchant items anywhere near your own level without serious party pooling of resources.
Mention to your DM you would like to learn more rituals, and some enemy Ritualists with lootable books and components would be nice.
Oh, okay, thanks! But what do you means a one-on-one basis? And wouldn't I have to have the amount of residuum in monetary value equal to the monetary value of the component cost?
Oh, okay, thanks! But what do you means a one-on-one basis? And wouldn't I have to have the amount of residuum in monetary value equal to the monetary value of the component cost?
I meant you shouldn't have to pay some kind of markup for ritual components, just an equal 1gp = 1gp of components. Rituals are plenty expensive enough.
You do need the components on hand, but if you're in large cities where the DM thinks components are for sale, you can pick some up, and even if you don't have pure Residuum most rituals use other components too, which may be easier to buy from a fluff perspective.
You might also discuss a custom magic item that turns gold directly into components or the like.
And about the languages: The DM can introduce special languages for the campaign, like "Thieves' Cant" to show secret double-talk language used by thieves' guilds and such, or secret languages of secret organizations, but honestly if you know several common ones from the PHB, and have the Comprehend Language ritual (which never gets old) you don't really need any additional languages.
Thanks!
Ritual costs appear high, but in practical play I have found the costs of most rituals to be negligible. The cheap low-cost rituals might never outlive their usefulness, and the fancy ones that affect the whole party are easily split five ways.
Seconded.
Most of the most useful, all-purpose, and flashy rituals are low level - levels 1-5 or so. By the time you hit paragon or so, the component cost for those is negligible.
Don't feel like you have to use rituals all the time. Think of them like a Wizard's planning tool.
Magic Circle is one of my favorites, as you can stop all enemy movements with little effort. Place a Magic Circle in a doorway, or something, where opponents can't get by it. With allies assisting, a good arcana check, and some knowledge of your foes, a Magic Circle is essentially an impassible wall. 
If a ritual helps the entire group, like most do, you should be able to convince the other group members to pitch in.
You also need to prioritize which rituals to buy, and you need to be frugal about using them.
Rituals are too expensive. I stand by that.
I'm fortunate enough that my DM has let me just deduct the GP cost from my gold and "assume" I had previously purchased the components, and my party members are usually good about chiping in. It's still too much though.
What I want is for the same approach they're taking with martial prowess or whatever that stuff is called (the upcoming martial power source version of rituals that uses up healing surges rather than gold.) Why not healing surges for arcane rituals? Why do I have to burn through precious gold when I need it to afford my measly item bonuses I desperately need?
Yeah, rituals eat at me. Even more since they showed off those martial-only "rituals" without a monetary cost.
Rituals are too expensive. I stand by that.
Buying the ritual itself can be kind of pricey. But only kind of. The highest-level PH ritual, True Portal, costs only 425,000 gp - one-tenth of what the party will find at that level. Or, one-half of your share. One-half of your share for a single level. For an incredibly powerful ritual, I might add.
Casting that ritual costs 50,000 gp - less than one-sixteenth of your share for that level. Oh, and what's this? If you use an existing teleportation circle, the cost is cut to 1,000 gp!
If rituals are cheap or free, acquiring them becomes meaningless, and the wizard's free rituals lose their power as a class feature.
Now that you've seen the numbers, so you still stand by that?
Now this isnt official at all but I put these feats in as a house rule for people who said the same thing and have no complaints about how they have panned out. The only down side is my 17+ lvl group flies every where on phantom steads rather than walking. They are almost epic though so...
Ritual Casting
There are three new feats available for ritual casters. These feats allow you to channel some of your own energy into it rather than spending costly material components for the casting of a ritual. Raise Dead is firmly protected by the gods of death and any attempts to use these powers while raising someone will succeed but costs the caster there life. Likewise the creating of magical objects takes a more permanent expenditure of the magic stored in an individual and to use any of these feats in the creation of a magical object will cause a permanent loss of the ability used in the creation of the object. "Healing Surges used in the creation of an object are gone forever and the use of the Quick cast feat causes you to lose the feat with no option to retrain out of it."
Quick Cast- Gives you the daily power to channel part of yourself to cast a ritual quickly but doing so is strenuous and can only be done once between extended rests treat this as a daily power. The power allows you to cast one Ritual of half your character lvl in one full round of casting this casting takes one standard action to start the cast from this turn then the standard action from your following turn to finish. If you take any damage while casting your ritual is interrupted and the power spent. This power may not be recovered by any means and you may not use action points to speed up the cast.
Paragon Caster- you may spend one healing surge rather than spending up to 100g in material components for any spell of half your lvl or lower.
If the spell is over half your lvl you must spend 2 surges for each 100g this fatigues you for a bit though and you are at –1 to all die rolls for each 100g till you take an extended rest.
Epic Caster- prereq Paragon Caster you may spend one healing surge rather than spending up to 1000g in material components for any spell of half your lvl or lower.
If the spell is over half your lvl you must spend 2 surges for each 1000g this fatigues you for a bit though and you are at –1 to all die rolls for each 1000g till you take an extended rest.
I like the feats - but note that they need to have exceptions for item-generation feats, so that you don't have people taking extended rests and generating random magical items. I may actually suggest them for my own campaign, as they'd be pretty solidly in character for both ritual casters in our group.
Yeah there is an exception its in the top part just not in each individual feat basicly what it says is that any healing surges used in magic item creation are permenatly lost.
I'm letting my players collect residuum (whatever) from their kills. They are all x-Hackmaster players so they are used to the concept. Basically, magical creature have something in them that makes them magic. I haven't made a firm price yet but as a guideline with a Nature (Heal?) roll they can collect 10xLevel for Heroic Tier creatures. (100xLvl Paragon, 1000xLvl Epic)
I'm not sure of the rates, but this way the whole party contributes to to ritual costs.
Good idea or no?
The one thing I don't like about the rituals as they are now is that its mostly viewed as a gold cost to use the rituatls and not a component cost. That is what it is but I think people might use them more if it wasn't solely viewed as a monetary cost.
I'd like to have a way for the players to get the components other than just spending gold on it. Most likely that would end up having them use their various skills and their time.
I'd like to have it be something like the havesting idea mentioned above. Most likely i'd rather have it something the players do when they are preparing for an adventure rather than occuring during the adventure.
I have found that in my group the rituals get overlooked a lot. People forget they have them and don't seek them out so they can learn them. Hopefully I can change that in a few weeks when we start scales of war.
Rituals are too expensive. I stand by that.
Buying the ritual itself can be kind of pricey. But only kind of. The highest-level PH ritual, True Portal, costs only 425,000 gp - one-tenth of what the party will find at that level. Or, one-half of your share. One-half of your share for a single level. For an incredibly powerful ritual, I might add.
Casting that ritual costs 50,000 gp - less than one-sixteenth of your share for that level. Oh, and what's this? If you use an existing teleportation circle, the cost is cut to 1,000 gp!
If rituals are cheap or free, acquiring them becomes meaningless, and the wizard's free rituals lose their power as a class feature.
Now that you've seen the numbers, so you still stand by that?
Yup. Still stand by it.
Especially considering that the person I spoke to on the DM Hotline last night agreed with me enough that he suggested introducing free components into treasure hauls in addition to normal treasure parcels.
So you can save your snark.
Now this isnt official at all but I put these feats in as a house rule for people who said the same thing and have no complaints about how they have panned out. The only down side is my 17+ lvl group flies every where on phantom steads rather than walking. They are almost epic though so...
Ritual Casting
There are three new feats available for ritual casters. These feats allow you to channel some of your own energy into it rather than spending costly material components for the casting of a ritual. Raise Dead is firmly protected by the gods of death and any attempts to use these powers while raising someone will succeed but costs the caster there life. Likewise the creating of magical objects takes a more permanent expenditure of the magic stored in an individual and to use any of these feats in the creation of a magical object will cause a permanent loss of the ability used in the creation of the object. "Healing Surges used in the creation of an object are gone forever and the use of the Quick cast feat causes you to lose the feat with no option to retrain out of it."
Quick Cast- Gives you the daily power to channel part of yourself to cast a ritual quickly but doing so is strenuous and can only be done once between extended rests treat this as a daily power. The power allows you to cast one Ritual of half your character lvl in one full round of casting this casting takes one standard action to start the cast from this turn then the standard action from your following turn to finish. If you take any damage while casting your ritual is interrupted and the power spent. This power may not be recovered by any means and you may not use action points to speed up the cast.
Paragon Caster- you may spend one healing surge rather than spending up to 100g in material components for any spell of half your lvl or lower.
If the spell is over half your lvl you must spend 2 surges for each 100g this fatigues you for a bit though and you are at –1 to all die rolls for each 100g till you take an extended rest.
Epic Caster- prereq Paragon Caster you may spend one healing surge rather than spending up to 1000g in material components for any spell of half your lvl or lower.
If the spell is over half your lvl you must spend 2 surges for each 1000g this fatigues you for a bit though and you are at –1 to all die rolls for each 1000g till you take an extended rest.
I like your Paragon and Epic Caster feats. I'm not sure about Quick Cast though. I think Rituals are too powerful for in-combat use. Your Paragon and Epic feats are just the thing I'm thinking about, however, from what I understood from my call last night, Wizards has no intent to introduce this themselves, which I expressed disappointment in, and my pro-DM took note of.
I'm letting my players collect residuum (whatever) from their kills. They are all x-Hackmaster players so they are used to the concept. Basically, magical creature have something in them that makes them magic. I haven't made a firm price yet but as a guideline with a Nature (Heal?) roll they can collect 10xLevel for Heroic Tier creatures. (100xLvl Paragon, 1000xLvl Epic)
I'm not sure of the rates, but this way the whole party contributes to to ritual costs.
Good idea or no?
Definitely a good idea per above.
Here's an idea. Let's say the stomach has to be harvested from a creature. Perhaps the party has to keep it preserved, and can extract residuum when needed. (You could add in a regular skill check to keep it preserved if desired.) When you feel they've used "enough" of it to cast their rituals, you tell them that the residuum is just about expended and they'll need to replenish with a new source. Then you can basically just let them cast their Rituals as you feel is fair.
Hmm, I like that idea. I think I'll introduce this, combined with a healing surge expenditure, in my home campaign. I wonder if my DM will approve of my use of this in my other game. Maybe I'll even call back the DM Hotline and see if they approve. (Unless someone else wants to try first and post what they're told.)
The one thing I don't like about the rituals as they are now is that its mostly viewed as a gold cost to use the rituatls and not a component cost. That is what it is but I think people might use them more if it wasn't solely viewed as a monetary cost.
I'd like to have a way for the players to get the components other than just spending gold on it. Most likely that would end up having them use their various skills and their time.
I'd like to have it be something like the havesting idea mentioned above. Most likely i'd rather have it something the players do when they are preparing for an adventure rather than occuring during the adventure.
I have found that in my group the rituals get overlooked a lot. People forget they have them and don't seek them out so they can learn them. Hopefully I can change that in a few weeks when we start scales of war.
Yeah. I rarely cast a ritual. I'm always saving my gold to purchase magic items. I still don't have nice toys like rings at mid-paragon with the campaign getting toward it's conclusion. Gold is just too valuable to "waste" on Rituals.